She hadn't given much thought to the idea of asking a congressman to rip up the only legal form of identification she had. Erika Andiola said it just happened that way, a spur-of-the-moment move.

Andiola had traveled from Phoenix to northwest Iowa to meet with other people like herself — young immigrants brought to the country illegally, now eligible to stay and work legally under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

While she was there, a local activist took her to a campaign rally for U.S. Rep. Steve King. She planned to question King about a bill he sponsored to kill the deferred-action program, which passed the House of Representatives on Friday.

When they came face to face, she says, she decided to dare him to perform what would effectively be a personal enactment. She handed over her deferred-action card and invited him to tear it up.

Immigration-rights activist Erika Andiola of Phoenix confronted Republican Congressman Steve King of Iowa at a King fundraiser Monday in Okoboji, Iowa.

King declined. But their interaction — all caught on cellphone video — had the right combination of emotion and politics to explode online.

By the time she got back to Phoenix, Andiola says, "I turned on my phone and it was just going nuts," she said. "The video had 200,000 views or something. Holy cow, this is really big."

The video has since received more than 860,000 views. It has been featured on national news networks and on various national political websites and blogs.

Part of the reason, according to Arizona State University political science professor Rodolfo Espino, was the reaction of U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, who was sitting next to King about to eat a burger. Paul, upon hearing Andiola introduce herself, left the table.

Several political commentators mentioned Paul, including Stephen Colbert, who joked Wednesday night that the senator had started a "Paul-eo" diet that involves leaving uneaten food on the table when an undocumented immigrant approaches.

Espino said Paul had held a moderate position on immigration, but has had to tilt to the right as he mulls a 2016 Presidential run. "He's having to be very careful about how he's being positioned and framed," Espino said.

By contrast, King had no problem defending his hard-line position to Andiola, Espino said.

The video gave the public the ability to parse both men's unguarded, unscripted reactions. "If it had been King and Paul sitting there listening, not saying a thing, I don't think it would generate as much buzz," Espino said. "But what goes viral? These random, crazy moments."

Espino said the video is a form of activism that is different, and potentially more effective, than marches, rallies or protests. A decade ago, he said, proponents of immigration reform might have been outside the restaurant waving signs and protesting. Now, they are inside with smart phones at the ready.

"Rather than try to amass a million people in an area at once," Espino said. "You make sure a million people are watching."

Andiola, co-director of an immigrant-rights group, DRM Action Coalition, is an activist who has garnered publicity for her cause before, but not to this level.

She has been arrested twice — once in 2010 during a sit-in at the U.S. Capitol and again this year outside Phoenix immigration offices. She also released another video that went viral in January 2013, the day immigration authorities arrested her mother and brother. The attention from that video worked: Her mother and brother were released after less than a day, though both still face deportation proceedings.

King released a statement to the Sioux City Journal that said Andiola's confrontation with him "perfectly illustrates the leftist model of attack — personalize, polarize, distort facts, ambush and prey on people's emotions."

Messages left by The Arizona Republic at King's D.C. offices and some field offices in Iowa were not returned.

Andiola said she was glad King did not rip up her card. Thinking about it on the drive out of the lakeside town, she realized it was her only identification and she might not have been able to fly home to Arizona.

Cellphone captures encounter

Andiola had been holding a meeting in Orange City, Iowa, with young immigrants in the country illegally. The northwest Iowa area is farm country, and illegal immigrants work in slaughterhouses and hen houses. Many of them have children who are eligible for the deferred-action program, which gives many residents who were brought as children long-term permission to live and work in the U.S. if they meet requirements about their education and legal record.

Those young adults are starting to organize, said Anne Junod, an activist helping with those efforts. Junod, who is writing a master's thesis about immigrants' lives in the area, helped organize Andiola's visit.

Junod said she visits political rallies whenever she can to gauge attitudes. She knew King was speaking about an hour away at the Barefoot Bar and Grill in Okoboji, Iowa. She and her husband, a Washington, D.C., immigration-reform activist, drove there with Andiola and Cesar Vargas, a New York activist and co-director of the DRM Action Coalition.

They attended as interlopers. Junod said the four arrived at the restaurant well before the fundraiser. They stayed as tables were set up around them and people started collecting money at the restaurant's entrance.

Andiola, 27, said they listened to King's speech and heard him tell donors about the successful passage of a bill that would end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

"As we were listening it was like, oh my God, this is just horrible," Andiola said Wednesday, during an interview from her Mesa home.

Andiola, who illegally crossed the border from Mexico with her mother at age 11, leaned over to Vargas and said: "I have my DACA card. I wonder what he would do with it."

It is a version of tactics that other Arizona immigration activists have used against politicians who talk tough about illegal immigration. Young people, armed with video cameras and earnest faces, have approached state lawmakers, the Governor's Office and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

After the speech, Andiola confronted King, who was seated at an outdoor table with a plate of food.

She introduced herself and said that she knew King wanted to end the deferred-action program. She gave her card to him and offered him the opportunity to rip it up.

King took the card and examined it, but refused to tear it up, saying he deals with policy, not individual cases.

The two talked for seven minutes, all captured by Junod on her phone.

As she held the phone, Junod said, someone she believed was connected with King tried to get her to stop recording.

"It was just so funny to me," Junod said. "Is he saying things you don't want him to say?" she said she asked herself. Junod held her phone up, away from the staff member's reach.

Junod's husband posted the video during the drive out of Okoboji. Within an hour, it had received 300 views on You Tube.

Andiola went to sleep at Junod's home and then boarded a plane back to Phoenix. There, she found the confrontation was being discussed by political commentators and shown on national television.

By then, she figured she should watch it herself to see exactly what was in it.

Putting a face to the issue

She remembered most of the details, especially King reaching out and clutching her fingers as she tried to gesture. "He grabbed my hand really hard," she said.

She recalled him praising her command of the English language and asking whether she was a drug smuggler.

But she hadn't noticed Paul's exit until she saw the video. "I was so focused on King, I didn't see that," Andiola said.

She has lost track of how many articles have been posted about the video. More than 500 according to Google News. The story made Fox News Channel and CNN. Andiola twice appeared on MSNBC.

Andiola said she was glad to be able to put a face to the issue, to both the general public and to politicians like King.

"They always talk about us as if we were in the abstract," she said. "They always talk about us as a number. Once you are able to talk to (politicians) and really show a human face, sometimes they get really nervous or they don't know what to say.

"Or, sometimes, they show their true colors."

Andiola said she wasn't nervous talking with King. In a job she had briefly with Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, she spoke with representatives she met in the halls of the Capitol. She would tell them she was an undocumented person and their reactions were mainly polite, she said.

"It's a completely different conversation when the cameras are not on," she said.

Andiola figured she wouldn't change King's mind. But she is hoping the public presses the need for immigration reform.

More urgently, she is hoping Obama extends the eligibility of the deferred-action program to not only include young people who entered the country illegally, but also older immigrants like her mother, and her sister who has aged out of the program.

"I didn't have a political agenda, but it is a personal agenda," she said. "I do want my mom to be able to stay here."